Each time we drive north from here, we pass the turn-off for Biscarrosse after about an hour - and it's somewhere that's been on my "must see" list for a long time. Biscarrosse was once the center for flying boat operations in France when, for a few short years, many people thought that these magnificent aeroplanes represented the future of aviation - especially on the transatlantic routes. This remarkable aircraft - the Latécoère 521 - (right & below) had six engines - four pulling and two pushing - and it could carry 72 passengers and stay aloft for 33 hours..(gulp!)
A museum has been established at Biscarrosse to celebrate the golden age of the flying boat in France.
3rd December. A splendid lunch yesterday in good company. I'm on the committee of a local association and our president had kindly invited us all to his home for a seasonal lunch. There were ten of us seated around a long table.. and we quickly got up to taxying speed with the aid of some 10 year old Aberlour single malt whisky.
He told us that his sister would have been 90 on that day but sadly she died in June 2015. He showed us a photograph of his sister in happier times with her husband after the war. We raised our glasses to a very special lady.
She and her parents had been actively involved during WWII in sheltering shot-down Allied pilots and helping them to return to the UK via Spain and Gibraltar. They had been arrested in early 1943 and had suffered cruelly in their interrogations and during their subsequent deportation to the hell holes that were the concentration camps of Buchenwald (the father) and Ravensbrück (mother and 16 year old daughter). During the hubbub of conversation that followed, this story set me thinking and my thoughts went back to someone I'd met a long time ago. I'd spoken to the president's sister a few times and I was always struck by her physical resemblance to a lady I once knew on a Greek island in the 1960s. She was a Jew and she had been deported from the island, along with almost 1700 others, via a long and harrowing journey to Auschwitz. Amazingly she survived - and she was one of a handful who returned after being liberated. She lived next door to me in the old town and I'd sometimes hear her screaming during the night. She once showed me a faded blue number tattooed on her left forearm. She had a haunted expression on her face and looked at least ten years older than her husband (who was actually older than her). She'd seen things that no-one should ever see. RIP Maria.
